Hideouts & Hoodlums: Reuter Mansion
by Scottenkainen
Summary: Seven Golden Age and mostly public domain superheroes gather to explore the ruined hideout under Reuter Mansion. To understand how this is like OD&D, see my profile.
1. Chapter 1

Al Capone. "Bugs" Moran. Detroit's Purple Gang. Any mobster working the Midwest in the '20s paid their dues to master criminal and super-villain Tyrone Reuter. Being a millionaire several times over due to his criminal empire, Reuter became an eccentric recluse, retiring to a mansion he had built to his specifications in the wilds of northern Minnesota. However, Reuter became even more infamous after his semi-retirement for the open challenge he posed to vigilantes and adventurers. Word spread of a huge hideout, big enough for his entire mob, built under his mansion, and that any would-be crimefighters were welcome to try bearding them in their lair.

Tyrone Reuter went missing in 1932 and his mansion fell into disrepair, but none of that stopped the rumors that his mob still operated out of his basement hideout or that Reuter had left his huge fortune in stolen loot down there. That many who went to investigate the hideout rumors never returned alive only kept the speculation going until it became a mania. Indeed, by 1939, the economy of Minnesota had recovered from the Depression era faster than any other state, fueled mainly by the influx of wealth brought in from treasure hunters.

January 2, 1940.

New York City.

"Reuter Mansion?" Wonder Man asked, as he sat down the old photo that had been handed to him. The photo was of Reuter Mansion from its heyday. "Is that place even still standing?" he asked.

The red-hooded vigilante called The Arrow nodded. "It's in ruins now, but it's still there."

Wonder Man's face betrayed no emotion. Typical of this new breed of superhero that was replacing the vigilantes, Wonder Man eschewed wearing a mask, relying on a uniform of red nylon to identify himself. "Are you proposing just the two of us investigate it?"

"No, I'm proposing something larger than that," The Arrow said. "I'm assembling a whole team for a major expedition. Others have gone down there into his hideout, ran into a few mobsters, and made off with a few trophies. We're going to clear out the whole hideout."

"Who do you have so far?"

"Zanzibar the Great."

"Who's that?"

"A real magic-user – not just the stage magician variety, though he does that too. I'm also looking to recruit these men," The Arrow said and he produced some newspaper clippings to show Wonder Man.

Wonder Man looked the photos over and nodded with an approving smirk on his face. "What a team we'll make. I don't think there's ever been anything quite like us."

January 2, 1939.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

When Tommy Geppi's mob tried to knock over the Gerandowe Jewelry store on Locust St., the last thing they expected to see between them and their getaway car was a blonde-haired man in red leotards and matching gold helmet, gauntlets, and girdle. The three men responded by lifting their machine pistols and aiming them at the man.

"Get out of the way, ya nut!" the hoodlum named Vince ordered.

"No," Shock Gibson said. He only gestured with his hand and Vince's gun gave him a terrible electrical shock. As he dropped it in alarm, he saw the gun melting on the sidewalk.

Vince was made of sterner stuff than the usual cowardly, superstitious criminal, though. "Waste 'em!" he ordered the other two hoodlums as he nursed his burnt hand.

Just then, a man jumped down from the roof of the jewelry store right on top of one of the remaining hoodlums, smashing him face-first into the sidewalk. If Gibson looked garishly dressed, this man looked almost indecent, wearing just two crossed baldrics across his chest, shorts, and boots. Somehow, the cold Pennsylvania winter was not bothering him at all.

The remaining hoodlum was looking to make a run for it at this point, but received a punch from in front and behind by both Gibson and his newly-arrived comrade. The hoodlum went down and Vince put up his hands in surrender.

"How can I thank you for your timely arrival, Mister?" Shock Gibson asked.

"The name's Amazing Man and you can thank me by listening to the same offer The Arrow made to me…"

January 7, 1939.

Baltimore, Maryland.

Zanzibar the Great played to a packed house. He looked cool and debonair in his black tuxedo and fez as he performed the standard array of tricks, ending on a seemingly impossible teleport trick that left his audience gasping before they burst into applause.

After the show, while caging the animals from his act, Zanzibar was not surprised to see a man in a white tuxedo walk up to him. "The Wizard, I presume. Thank you for coming."

"My pleasure. It was a most interesting show. I'm not entirely sure how you performed that last feat and I have made an exhaustive study of magic," The Wizard said.

"You know who else studied magic?" Zanzibar asked with the same coolness. "Tyrone Reuter."

The Wizard arched an eyebrow and regarded Zanzibar with another level of intrigue.

"It's said that he was a collector too," Zanzibar continued as he collapsed his collapsible wand. "Who knows what he might have left behind? Would you like to come find out?"

January 10, 1940.

African Jungle.

The Senufo Tribe was in the process of building new homes with modern materials, but were stuck waiting for a truck to arrive with more shingles and nails. What they did not know was that the truck they were waiting for was stuck with a flat tire over a mile outside their village. Nor did they know that the driver, Sejen, had a black panther creeping up on him.

Thankfully, the black panther had Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, creeping up on it. She sprang before it could and forced it to turn around and face her. "Mbaraaral, stand down!" she commanded as she menaced the panther with the spear clutched in her hands.

Mbaraaral hissed and pawed at the spear, trying to judge how seriously Sheena would oppose him and got poked in the paw for his answer. The panther tried circling her, looking for a weak angle for attack, but Sheena was agile and kept her spear always between them. She never took her hard gaze off the panther's eyes and never let him see her resolve falter. Finally, Mbaraaral backed down and slunk away.

"Sheena, thank you!" Sejen said, displaying his command of English that most Senufo had learned and become accustomed to using of late. But Sheena never turned to face him. She was staring into the jungle.

"You can come out," Sheena called. "I know you are there."

Quickly, a man did emerge from the jungle foliage, though even Sheena was surprised by how he was dressed. A white man with blonde hair, he wore red leotards with a turned-up collar and a yellow emblem on his chest with a stylized "W" in a circle. The man looked Sheena up and down, appreciating her leopardskin outfit, both where it was and wasn't.

"I can see why The Arrow sent me to fetch you," Wonder Man said.

"You were impressed by how I handled that panther?" Sheena asked.

"What panther?" Wonder Man asked back.

Sheena knew enough about civilization to know when a man was being uncivilized. Giving him a sneer of contempt, she turned and ran away. What she did not expect was to see the oddly-dressed man sprint and catch up to her and then run beside her as if keeping pace with her was easy for him.

"Wait – don't you want to hear my offer?" Wonder Man asked.

"No," Sheena said as she veered into the jungle. She raced up the side of a tree, grabbed a vine, and tried to swing away, but Wonder Man was still keeping pace with her.

"This isn't just for my benefit, you know!" he continued. "There's a fortune waiting for you in America. Think of the good you could do with the money when you come back here with it!"

Sheena lit onto a tree branch and waited for Wonder Man. "A fortune? Speak, before I lose my patience for you again."

Wonder Man sighed. "Ever heard of a crook named Tyrone Reuter…?"

January 20, 1940.

Duluth, Minnesota.

The Coney Island restaurant in downtown Duluth had never seen a crowd like this before. Sheena had changed into a normal dress. Zanzibar and the Wizard had changed into slightly more casual suits (though Zanzibar kept his fez on). But Wonder Man, Amazing-Man, and Shock Gibson were all in their garish costumes, as if determined to out-do one another. Even The Arrow wore a red scarf and hood over a normal suit.

"To success!" Wonder Man said as he toasted the others with his root beer mug.

"How do you know we'll be successful?" The Wizard asked as he pulled a cigarette from his lips.

"To go in expecting anything less would be setting ourselves up for failure," Amazing-Man answered.

"Whether we succeed in our larger mission of clearing the hideout or not," The Arrow said, "I assure you that, the next time we all dine together, it will be on steak and lobster instead of cheeseburgers."

"Hey, don't knock the chili dog," Gibson retorted with a wry grin.

"Pardon me," Zanzibar said as he stood up. "I have to go to the little magician's room…"

"I still think we should be scouting the mansion before we go in," Sheena said as she finished her French fries. "We still don't know anything about the layout of the building."

The Arrow shook his head. "As I understand it, the mansion itself is a shambles. It's the hideout underneath it we'll be exploring. And no one knows of any existing blueprints for the hideout. We'll have to scout it as we go tomorrow."

"To tomorrow!" Wonder Man said as he toasted again with an empty mug. "Now, who wants to go find a place selling real beer?"

"No alcohol tonight," The Arrow said. "Everyone needs to be fresh and alert in the morning for the last leg of our journey."

"Don't be a killjoy. I'm not going to get drunk," Wonder Man said quietly, but seriously.

"We must all prepare for this expedition in our own way," Amazing-Man said. "I myself will be meditating."

Wonder Man rolled his eyes, but soon chose someone else to talk to. "What about you, Sheena? What are your plans for tonight?"

"Going out to the movies."

Before Wonder Man could make his move, Zanzibar came back and took Sheena by the arm.

"Ready to go?" Zanzibar asked.

After Zanzibar and Sheena left, Wonder Man laughed. "He IS a magician!" he said.


	2. Chapter 2

Reuter Mansion was as dilapidated and abandoned as the rumors had said. It was only two stories tall with a partial third floor. Harsh Minnesota winters had stripped it of much of its paint and quite a few shingles from its roof. What windows were not boarded up were smashed. To Sheena, it seemed a shame that men could build such amazing buildings and then let them fall into disuse. This one building could have housed an entire village back home. But she said nothing. Their vigil was a long and quiet one, huddled together in the back of a rental truck parked on a lonely stretch of road, stepping outside to smoke a cigarette to warm up or taking the binoculars to go watch for signs of activity at the mansion.

Security was not an issue. There was a tall privacy fence around the mansion's four-acre property, but the fence was falling down, or deliberately wrecked, in places. Slipping through one of the cracks seemed a better alternative to the rusty front gates, which were chained and padlocked. That still did not stop Wonder Man and Shock Gibson from offering to wreck the gates down when they saw them.

The Wizard had said with dry humor that they should not try to announce themselves.

It was twilight when The Arrow said, "Okay, I'm satisfied. Let's go in."

That the house was deserted was debatable. Being a Minnesota winter, there were two inches of snow on the ground that were less than a week old and they were already rutted with tire tracks, foot prints, and animal tracks criss-crossing the grounds. Though nothing seemed to move in the old house, it was clear that plenty had been this way in the last few days.

They moved single file through the first gap in the fence they reached. Sheena's long blonde hair flowed past her shoulders, but her shoulders were covered by a turtleneck sweater and blue jeans completed her outfit. She had a long knife sheathed at her side, but carried no other weapon. Wonder Man followed her through, wearing the mostly red costume the others had already seen him wear, as well as a backpack loaded heavy with supplies that did not seem to encumber him at all. Wonder Man was the only one who had seen her in the leopardskin she wore in the wilderness of Africa and had half-hoped she would wear it here, despite the cold. Following Wonder Man was The Wizard, wearing his white tuxedo. At least out here in the snow it served as better camouflage than his other partners wore. Following him was The Arrow, clad from head to foot in blood red, down to the fletchings on the arrows in his leather quiver. Amazing-Man followed him, clad as scantily as he had been when he recruited Shock Gibson in Philadelphia, but as unaffected by the cold as he was by the heavy backpack he bore. Zanzibar followed, clad in his black tuxedo and fez. Zanzibar puffed lazily on a cigarette, as if uncaring of the possible danger all around them. Bringing up the rear was Shock Gibson, clad in his costume that uniquely combined elements from a Roman soldier and a ballerina.

The acres on which the old mansion sat were studded with tall, snow-capped evergreens and leafless, thorny bushes. There was an uncomfortable amount of available cover for an ambush concerning the tacticians amongst the party. And there were ample windows and hiding places on the roof for a waiting sniper to pick them off. Hence, cooler heads had argued for watching the place until it grew dark, and prevailed over those who had wished to barge in that afternoon.

"Make straight for the front door," The Arrow said. "Let's stay out here in the open as little as possible."

The front porch sagged and groaned loudly as it was stepped on, as if announcing their presence. Zanzibar, still looking unworried, flicked his cigarette against the wall of the house. The front door was not locked, nor did it even seem to be closed tight. Sheena swung the door open to reveal the wrecked interior. Rooms were stocked with more debris than furnishings, though some contained sheet-covered chairs and cabinets that, upon inspection, looked like they could be valuable antiques. Most of the inside walls had their wallpaper torn down and holes torn through the walls themselves. The hardwood floors creaked and groaned savagely under every footstep, but the whole house seemed to be silent and still except for the presence of the seven fresh intruders.

Sheena drew her knife and The Arrow cocked an arrow in his bow. The others, all unarmed, simply stayed alert.

"Let's try the kitchen," Wonder Man suggested. "That seems a likely place to find a way down."

The kitchen's slate countertops had been torn off the cabinets and the potbelly stove in the corner had been knocked over, its chimney hanging loose from the ceiling. There was a narrow set of stairs from the larder leading down to a small cellar, but as hard as they searched that cellar, they could find no secret entrance to a larger underground hideout.

"Could these rumors have been simply untrue?" Sheena asked.

"I don't believe it," The Arrow said. "We've got to search the whole house."

The search of the house never went beyond the ground floor, as the coat room turned out to have a concealed staircase at the back. The wooden steps descended past brick walls to a cement platform. Below that, cement steps took them past cement walls that held back the earth and clay outside. They were descending deep now, deep enough that Wonder Man and Amazing-Man had to stop and produce flashlights from their backpacks. Twin beams of light flicked into existence and fought back the darkness from the advancing adventurers. Cobwebs hung in the corners and the slime trails of slugs criss-crossed the cement floor. Tiny centipedes skittered out of reach of their feet. The atmosphere was faux-medieval, like a recreation of a castle dungeon, until Amazing-Man's light beam landed on a light fixture, missing its light bulb, mounted high on the right wall. It was a reminder that, despite the primitive look of their surroundings, the hideout was wired for electricity and was more modern, more dangerous than any medieval castle dungeon could have been.

"Has anyone ever seen centipedes this size before?" The Wizard asked quietly.

"In Africa," Sheena whispered back, "but I did not think your continent grew them at this size.

There were side passages ahead, but they led nowhere except back to where the main passage led. The main passage led to a wedge-shaped room filled with cobwebs and, through a door on the far side, to a second, identically shaped room that formed a half-circle with the other. This room was more free of cobwebs and had a C-shaped, narrow pit in the floor. The pit was long, but not deep; its original purpose was unclear, but now it was partially filled with some kind of stinking, decayed matter. And crawling through that matter...

"How about this size?" Wonder Man asked as he gazed at the 18-inch long centipede crawling over the top of the decayed matter.

Some of the others leaned over the shallow pit and looked in with differing degrees of revulsion as another centipede of about the same size crawled out of the rot.

"Seen any that big in Africa?" Shock Gibson asked Sheena.

Sheena just turned up her nose and looked away.

"I doubt anyone has seen centipedes this size outside the Amazon," Amazing-Man said, still training his flashlight on the pit.

"Yeah, looking at bugs is fascinating," Wonder Man said louder and with obvious sarcasm. Everyone looked around and found Wonder Man standing by the curved outer wall of the room. "How about we examine this door-shaped crack in the wall instead?" He shone his flashlight all around the crack for the others to observe as they came over, ignoring the pit.

"Good find, Wonder Man," The Wizard said. "It's no ordinary door. A secret door?"

"Ah, but how to open it then?" Zanzibar asked. "With magic?"

"I bet that pit has something to do with opening this door," The Arrow suggested.

"Great ideas, guys," Wonder Man said. "How about we try this?" Without another sound, he stepped back, clenched his fist, and punched the door-shape with all his might.

Slowly, a sheet of concrete, assumedly thinner than the surrounding wall, fell away from the room into another hallway, throwing up dust into the air as it fell. It landed with a loud and echoing clattering noise as it hit something before it hit the floor of the hallway.

"So much for surprising anyone down here," Sheena said, giving Wonder Man a what-were-you-thinking-glare as she stepped over the downed door into the corridor beyond and lifted the corner of the door to see what was underneath it.

"You're welcome!" Wonder Man replied, not letting go of his sarcasm as he followed in line.

"There's a chest here!" Sheena said with quiet surprise.

"And how," Wonder Man joked.

Sheena gave him another glare. "No, help me move this."

The two of them together easily lifted the door and leaned it against the wall of the corridor. Underneath the door was a wooden chest.

"Okay, I get the unfinished hallways, to make people think the hideout was never completed, and the rooms that go in a circle, to make people think that's all there was to the hideout. But what's the chest doing here?"

The Wizard shrugged his shoulders and bent down to examine the chest. "Left here by someone who could not get it through the secret door? Maybe the mob leaves messages for each other in here? Or maybe it is part of some trap?" He tried the lid. "It doesn't appear to be locked."

"Try it," The Arrow said. "I'll go on ahead and watch the corridor."

"Let me," Amazing-Man said as he grabbed the lid, allowed The Wizard a moment to step back, and then lifted it open.

The chest had nothing but hundreds and hundreds of pennies stacked in it.

"Penny for your thoughts?" The Wizard said as he lifted a penny out with his gloved hand and held it up for everyone to see.

"Maybe the mob is saving up for a rainy day," Wonder Man offered.

It was quickly decided to push the chest through the open doorway into the last room and leave it there for now. Sheena and Wonder Man returned to the fore of the party as they continued to explore. The corridor they were in went on for about 50 feet before it turned right. Then the corridor turned out to be even longer heading this way.

"Why build hallways this long down here?" Shock Gibson whispered to Zanzibar as they continued to bring up the rear of the party.

"Who can say?" Zanzibar whispered back. "Our absent host, Mr. Reuter, was said to be a great eccentric. Perhaps he liked long hallways."

Soon, the corridor came to a four-way intersection. Flashlights were shown down each of their three choices. To the left, the passage soon led to another four-way intersection. Ahead, the passage led straight for as far as the flashlights could illuminate. To the right, the passage was only 20 feet long and ended with an archway to the right.

"Should someone be drawing a map?" The Arrow asked.

The Wizard turned and pointed to his temple. "Drawing it up here," he said. "But if we have to come back down here again, I'm bringing a notepad and a pen."

They chose the archway. The archway led to another short passage ending in another archway. Soon, they found they were in a small maze of short passages connected by archways. Most of the passages were empty. A few had straw mildewing on the floor and others had straw and small bones scattered on the floor, all of which had attracted more centipedes and slugs. On their fourth passage, they encountered their first pair of chains and manacles hanging from the wall and had their first clue as to what morbid purpose this area had once served.

They had spent about a half-hour of frustrated searching in the maze before Wonder Man heard a noise coming from a passage ahead of them. He motioned for Sheena to stop and listen and then she heard it too. Although Wonder Man's personality was annoyingly abrasive, she had to admire his extraordinary senses to have found the door and heard this sound both ahead of her.

It was not long before they found one last passage that was occupied by the most miserable pair of tenants. Two young women, no more than 20 years old, were chained to the wall. Their faces might have once been attractive, but make-up had run all down their face and obscured their features rather than highlighting them. Their crepe, short-sleeve, knee-length dresses, one red and one blue, were torn and ragged. Their hose was in tatters and only one of them wore one shoe. They were both awake, but slow to lift their heads to the sound of intruders. When they did look up and saw Sheena and Wonder Man approaching them, both women seemed to come alive. They looked with wide-eyed awe at their apparent rescuers, then at each other, and then back on their rescuers.

"Thank God someone's found us!" one of them said.

Sheena hushed her. "Are there mobsters nearby?" she asked. She had noticed a door on the far end of the passage and thought guards for these prisoners might be on the other side.

The captive woman's eyes followed Sheena's to the door and guessed her meaning. "No, there's no one through there. Just please get us out of here before the rats come for us."

"Giant rats," the other woman squeaked with a fearful voice.

Wonder Man grabbed one of the chains and gave it a little tug. "Strong chains," he observed. "Hey, Amazing! Want to back me up here?"

Each superhero took a length of chain in his hands and, after 30 seconds of pulling, had wrested them free from their moorings. The first freed woman fell forward into Sheena's waiting arms.

"What's your name, and who imprisoned you here?" Sheena asked as Wonder Man and Amazing-Man worked to free the other woman.

"I'm Lizzie," Lizzie said. "This is Imogene. It was Lars' men who chained us here, but not because they wanted to. It was all Mbooboo's doing."

"We need to hear more about this," The Wizard said. "Let's get them back closer to the entrance and maybe they can tell us their story."

"What about that door?" Wonder Man asked, pointing his thumb at the still untried door.

"We'll come back for it," Amazing-Man said.

It turned out to take half the time to get out of the maze as it took to get into it. Soon they were back in the secret door room, using the chest as a seat for Lizzie, who seemed to be the weaker of the two.

"I don't know how long we've been hanging there," Imogene said with a parched, hoarse voice, "but it's felt like days. Before that we were…" she looked down, embarrassed.

"Gun molls," Lizzie said. She looked up defiantly at Imogene and then at their rescuers. "There, I said it."

"It's true," Imogene said. "I thought Lars Erikson's mob was my ticket out of Duluth and to a big city, like Minneapolis. But Lars got to be obsessed with this place, with Reuter Mansion. Told everyone he was taking it over for himself. Moved the whole mob in here. And then he met this voodoo witch doctor named Mbooboo somehow. Mbooboo took over an entire section of the hideout down here and started making demands of Lars, like telling him he had to make us part of some ceremony he wanted us for. Well, neither of us liked the sound of that, so we tried to get away. Mbooboo said we had to be punished by being chained up back there. And you know the rest."

Everyone looked at each other.

"Well," The Arrow said, "I think we know who we need to take down while we're down here."

"We need to get these women to the surface first," Sheena said. "Maybe as far back to Duluth."

"Where we should consider turning them in," The Wizard said. "They have practically confessed to associating with criminals to us."

"Haven't they suffered for that enough already?" Wonder Man asked, surprising everyone with a sudden burst of tenderness. "I say we let them go."

"Taking them as far back as the last roadside diner and giving them something to eat and drink would be the least we can do," Shock Gibson agreed. "Then we might want to consider stocking up on more supplies. This looks to be a bigger expedition than any of us had expected."

"And then we can ask ourselves," Zanzibar said, "what we should expect next."


End file.
